In buildings and factories, there have been provided power plant facilities including air-conditioning facilities etc. that consume much energy, and private power generating facilities that generate electrical energy (hereinafter simply referred to as “facilities”). In recent years, it has been becoming social needs to implement measures for energy saving operation especially for the purpose of adjusting/reducing operating cost and carbon dioxide emissions.
For example, to take an air conditioner as an example, it has been generally known that an operating efficiency of the air conditioner is the best at rated load operation, and that it is reduced at a low load. Meanwhile, required heat energy, which is a heat load required for human living environment, changes depending on periods and time zones. Therefore, when pluralities of air conditioners are operated in a state of being arranged in parallel as seen in a number of buildings and factories, etc., there are many cases where an efficiency improves with a method that reduces the number of the air conditioners to be operated, and that operates the remaining air-conditioning facilities in a state near rated load to thereby be able to perform energy saving operation at a low heat load.
Cooling and heating are performed by air conditioners in a meeting place or the like where people gather together, and a fresh air is taken in to prevent insufficient oxygen in a room. Although CO2 concentration changes with the number of people etc. here, a certain amount of air is generally taken in from an outside air in many cases. In addition, there is often a case where the certain amount of outside air is always taken in by assuming the largest capacities of the meeting place. It has been known that if an intake amount of the outside air is controlled so as not to increase a CO2 concentration to not less than a prescribed value by monitoring the concentration in such the place, an operation efficiency of the air conditioner improves, and an energy saving effect can be expected.
In addition, loads of electrical facilities to which a private power generator supplies electrical energy also generally change largely depending on periods or time zones. When electrical loads become low, an efficiency of the power generator improves if the reduced number of electrical facilities is operated.
Further, an energy saving effect has also been known by controlling an amount of illumination on a ceiling according to an amount of solar radiation by the window.
As described above, there are many cases where energy saving operation can be achieved by operating facilities in a state of a high operating efficiency, or by stopping operation of unnecessary facilities. For this reason, more careful operation of the facilities has often been required for operators of the facilities.
Meanwhile, in these buildings and factories, an available maximum amount of power and maximum gas capacity are determined by power supply contracts, gas supply contracts, etc. in many cases. In such cases, when electric power etc. are used within a range of a contract capacity, a price per unit amount is relatively cheap, but once the contract capacity is exceeded, a penalty is imposed, and the price becomes high. Thus, a so-called total demand value, such as an amount of used power, is constantly monitored, and if a possibility of exceeding the contract capacity arises, a measure is taken for temporarily suppressing the total demand value by urgently stopping facilities with low work-related priorities and by suppressing output therefrom. It is also often well-known that saving of power rates can be achieved with such a method, as it is called, demand control. In this method, more careful operation of the facilities has often been required for operators of the facilities.
Recently, facility monitoring/controlling apparatuses (hereinafter referred to as “BEMS etc.”) comprised of computers are often employed in a number of buildings and factories. The operator can perform state monitoring and operation manipulation of pluralities of facilities through screens of GUIs displayed by the BEMS etc.
The BEMS etc. introduced for maintenance operation of power plant facilities in buildings and factories, etc., have been focused on centrally monitoring the state of the facilities decentrally installed in a premise of the building or the factory, and on centrally manipulating the start or stop of the facilities at the beginning of the introduction, and it has become possible to perform monitoring manipulation of the on-site facilities by performing remote manipulation by the operator from a central control room provided in the premise, whereby a certain effect of energy saving has been exerted. Thus, the BEMS etc. have been introduced in a number of sites.
Here, various ingenuities are made to the screens of the GUIs on monitors of the BEMS etc. in order that the operator of the facilities exactly grasps operational state of the facilities to be monitored, and that operation of the facilities is made easier. For example, the operator is informed of the operational state of the individual facilities decentrally arranged in the premise, that is, operated/stopped state, temperatures, and consumed power of the facilities, and further a state of an apparatus for taking in an outside air, etc. by displaying them as unique symbols and numerical values, etc.
The operator confirms a state of facilities and numerical values, displayed on the screen of the GUI and then performs remote manipulation of the facilities. In addition, the operator performs click manipulation of the unique symbols displayed on the screen corresponding to the facilities by using an input device such as a mouse, and performs input manipulation of the numerical values and characters using the input device such as a keyboard, whereby start or stop of the facilities, change of operation target values, etc. are performed.